Sea and Shadow
by ncfan
Summary: Early in the Second Age, Galadriel sets sail to Numenor.


I own nothing.

* * *

It sometimes struck Galadriel as a loss, that she no longer sailed.

When she was young, and the shores of Alqualondë were still bathed with what gold and silver light passed through the Calacirya, Galadriel had learned much of sailing. Her maternal uncles taught her just as much as they taught her brothers, and she had spent much of her time learning the ins and outs of rowboats, catamarans, and the Swan Ships of the Lindar. She had enjoyed it, just as much as she enjoyed learning of any craft. It helped also that she could find peace in Alqualondë among the Lindar that no longer existed in Tirion. As much as Galadriel was forever trying to make a name for herself during the days of the Unrest, Alqualondë was where she was happiest.

When Galadriel stood on the shores of Alqualondë, when she waded out into the shallows, sand and shells and pearls washing over her feet, she heard the strains of creation in the water. Sung in voices indescribable ( _the unveiled splendor of the Ainur and of Ilúvatar himself_ ), the words were made manifest not just in the brine but in her blood as well. It provided Galadriel a sense of understanding and peace that she never knew anywhere else. To hear creation in the water was as close as one of the Eldar could ever come to hearing the voice of Ilúvatar, and just to hear that was to lose sight of all the uncertainties of the world ( _Afterwards, Galadriel would never come so close to understanding the world again_ ).

But ever since the sea ran red with the commingled blood of the mariners and the fleeing Noldor, Galadriel's love of the sea was marred. For weeks as the Noldor wandered up the shores of Aman, into Araman, she heard not the voice of creation in the water—and indeed, would never hear it again. What she heard instead was the endless weeping and lamentations of Uinen, and the roaring of the nameless Sea, both crying out against the slaughter of the Falmari whom they had loved so dearly. All the time the world was bathed in darkness, all the time she spent wandering over the endless tracks of Ice and rock and snow, and even into the First Age, when Galadriel lingered by the Sea, she heard echoes of Uinen's weeping in the crashing waves. Though her heart might have been hardened against the Valar, and though she might have fought in defense of the Lindar instead of spilling their blood, the sorrow of Uinen haunted her steps, a sorrow so great that, at the time, Galadriel had supposed it great enough to drown out the echoes of the Ainulindalë. It chased her even away from the shores and into the streams and rivers and pools of inner Beleriand, to the point that Galadriel could no longer enjoy swimming as she used to.

Now, the Second Age of Vása had dawned, and Galadriel no longer heard the distant wails of Uinen in the flow and ebb of the ocean tides. She heard nothing at all. Nearly six hundred years after light returned to the world again, she found that her deafness to the watery echoes of the Ainulindalë was not simply the result of Uinen's voice drowning it out. She was simply deaf to it entirely.

Galadriel winced as the choppy seas buffeted the ship once again (Though, she hoped, her discomfort remained invisible to the mariners). She was no longer accustomed to the way the ocean constantly jostled a ship back and forth, no longer able to walk across a ship on the sea with anything resembling surety. She was now too accustomed to the solid earth ( _even when_ , _during the last few decades of the First Age, the earth shook with near-constancy from the force of the battles of Morgoth and the Valar_ ) for the movements of the sea to feel natural to her.

 _What would my mother's kin say of me if they could see me now?_ she wondered bitterly, staring out upon the sea darkened by the night. For a Linda of Aman, one of the Falmari, to be unfamiliar with the sea, it was unheard of, like a fish being unfamiliar with water. Falmari children learned to swim almost as soon as they learned to walk, and so it had been for Galadriel, though she had been born in Tirion and her mother had taught her to swim in a fountain. And now, Galadriel was so unaccustomed to the water that she wasn't even sure she remembered how to swim.

But all of that and the specter of her family's reaction would have been much easier to swallow if not for the silence of the sea. All this Galadriel could have borne without even the slightest sense of unrest if she did not find herself deaf to the whispering strains of the Ainulindalë in the sea. She wondered, at times, if the blood she had spilled at Alqualondë, the blood on her hands, was what had stopped up her ears. If it was simply the lot of all the Exiles to be cut off from even the echoing voices of Ilúvatar and the Ainur unless they submitted themselves to the Valar like the lowest of penitents.

 _After all, even after the Kinslaying, I chose the Noldor._

Galadriel did not know if such was the case for the other Exiles, or their children. Though she balked at the idea of cowardice, she had never revealed to anyone that her perception of the sea was in any way diminished.

There were other reasons, beyond all of this, that Galadriel kept her distance from the seashore. Like anyone who was forced onto the Isle of Balar in the latter decades of the First Age, she had seen sea-longing take its toll on so many of the Noldor, afflicting even those who had been born in Endóre, and had expressed no longing for Aman before reaching the sea.

Galadriel ran her fingers over the ring she wore on her right hand, frowning pensively out at the dark waters, at the pinpricks of starlight reflected upon them. All of those reasons to keep far away from the sea, and still, there was something that needed to be done. Dreams carried her here, after all. Dreams of waves like the waves that lapped against the side of the ship now, but taller.

-0-0-0-

Rarely did ships arrive on the shores of Númenórë from Endóre. Elrond was probably the most frequent visitor, and even he hadn't set foot on the island in more than twenty years now. The majority of Gil-Galad's court expressed no interest in this land for the Núnatani; it was, after all, not a land set aside for them. By contrast, Galadriel had to fight back her curiosity—all of her future lied in the East, not the West, where there was no room whatsoever for the lords of the Eldar. It was not every day, after all, that a new land was lifted up from the depths of the ocean specifically to house a people left homeless by the destruction of a war among the Valar, and every report of Númenórë attested to its beauty.

The ship approached Númenórë early in the summer morning, the azure sky barely touched with thin white clouds, the sea its mirror with clear water and gentle, foam-capped waves. The mariners, who were accustomed by this time to ferrying goods back and forth from Númenórë, barely paid the sight any mind, but standing by the railing, Galadriel drank in her first sight of Númenórë much the same way as she had her first sight of Beleriand so many years ago. If this time she wasn't starving and she wasn't blinking against bright light after being bereft of it for what seemed an eternity, the wonder was hardly lessened for it. Númenórë appeared on the horizon as a glimmering green jewel set on a canvas of white sand. After weeks at sea, it was such a relief to see.

"…My Lady, Gil-Galad does usually send a court official to supervise the presentation of valuable goods, but a personage such as yourself…"

"Is my presence unwelcome, then?"

"No, just unexpected."

The royal court of Númenórë could not be less like Gil-Galad's. It was much smaller, comprising twenty lords and ladies at the most, and maybe two dozen officials. This was, she surmised, a consequence of Númenórë being such a young kingdom, and the king having more important matters to attend to than configuring and staffing his court as the Kings of the Noldor would have done. The court did _not_ seem to masking tensions behind their welcoming smiles and pleasant conversations the way Lindon's did—even those descended from unions between the women of the House of Hador and the Easterlings were treated without resentment or scorn. _It must seem so long ago to them_. _But then, the children of the Atani always have possessed such short memories_.

Elros was not entirely dissimilar in temperament from Gil-Galad, though. For one, though the resemblance between Elros and Elrond was striking, Elros smiled more easily than his brother did, laughter touching his eyes and lips where it rarely did Elrond's. Galadriel had no idea what sort of temperament Elros had possessed before coming to live in Lindon at the close of the First Age (considering his upbringing, she would not have been surprised if he had been a melancholy sort, like his brother), but his easy smiles and mild tone of voice was similar enough to Gil-Galad that Galadriel supposed that Elros may have taken cues from him.

For another, Elros was well-liked by practically his entire court. This much Galadriel could see even over the amount of gawking the courtiers and officials did when they laid eyes on her. Elros cheerfully greeted and was greeted by nearly everyone he walked by. He asked after people and received prompt responses. When he asked for something to be done or fetched or for someone to be informed of some task that needed doing, he received immediate compliance—no complaints, no resentful stares, no resistance at all. It was a rare sort of person who managed to be well-liked by everyone he came across, especially when that person walked the halls of power. Galadriel had always envied those people that singular talent.

There was one way that Elros was working to make his court more like Gil-Galad's, however, and that was the collection of books.

Galadriel found herself with the young Númenorean king in the royal library in Armenelos, eyeing the still largely-empty shelves with a mixture of curiosity and pity. Such was the fates of the Edain of the First Age that they had so little of their own literature left that they could not fill a single library with their books—shadows filled the shelves instead of books, a consequence of the highly changeable weather so close to the sea (rain splattered on the roof overhead), but a forlorn image nonetheless. However, Elros seemed determined to collect as many books as he could. Whether it was chiefly for his own benefit or that of his people, Galadriel could not say, but the end result would be a benefit for them both. It was, in fact, books that had been brought to Númenórë on the ship Galadriel had arrived on, reproductions from Gil-Galad's own library.

Galadriel shot a quizzical look at Elros, eyebrow raised. "Indeed, I have often found 'unexpected' to be little more than a euphemism for 'unwanted,' and have been in that position more than once."

Elros's face colored. "Ah, yes. I do remember being in such a situation myself. I meant nothing by it," he muttered.

At the look of embarrassment on Elros's face, Galadriel decided to take pity on him. She _did_ remember the less than enthusiastic reaction of the Edhil of Lindon to the arrival of the remnants of the Edain at the close of the First Age. "Of course not." She smiled ruefully, remembering the sort of reception she had received in Mithrim, and later in Sirion. "Those who have been guests under such circumstances are usually less quick to resent unexpected guests themselves."

He relaxed, nodding and smiling that soft, easy smile he had greeted her with. Galadriel thought he looked rather like Eärendil when he smiled. "Well, I wouldn't dream of treating a guest poorly, and certainly not one who has come bearing gifts. Were you able to see much of the land on your way here?"

-0-0-0-

When they made their way outside, the rain had stopped, and sunlight shot out from holes in the cloud cover in shafts that roved over the green hills. The hills were deserted, utterly empty of people ("I'd have asked Sírien to join us, but she's been sequestered with the head of the physician's guild since yesterday, and Vardamir's tired easily of late."). A great mountain loomed in the west, casting a shadow that stretched for miles. Galadriel paused, staring at it, and frowned.

"The Meneltarma," Elros explained, catching her expression. "According to Eönwë it was raised so that we could do proper obeisance to the One." His mouth twisted ambivalently. "Truth be told, I find it and the prohibitions surrounding it rather odd. I was always taught that ritualized worship of the One bordered on blasphemous."

Galadriel remembered that line of argument rather distinctly—remembered it as being one of _Fëanor's_ objections to the Vanyar (And rather less generally, to his step-mother). Elros having been taught one of Fëanor's arguments on proper worship of Ilúvatar was not a line of conversation Galadriel particularly wanted to follow, so instead she asked, "And how were you instructed to conduct worship?"

"Three processions to the summit of the Meneltarma each year. I was actually given instructions of what I'm supposed to say in prayer, if you can believe that, but evidently only _I_ am allowed to speak." Elros's demeanor became one of disbelief. "I asked Eönwë what would happen if someone else was to speak, but he wouldn't say." Elros frowned heavily. "I saw it necessary after that to bar small children from attending the ceremonies."

"That's likely for the best," Galadriel agreed, still staring with some disquiet upon the mountain. _Whatever punishment the Valar have put in place for breaking the rule of silence, I doubt they would excuse children. After all, they did not excuse the children of the Noldor when the Doom was pronounced._ _And as for this…_

The Meneltarma resembled Taniquetil greatly. It was not so tall, certainly—what mountain could ever be so tall as the tallest mountain in the world?—but it had the same aura surrounding it. It was one that encouraged reverence and silence, one that forced those who stood in its presence to speak only in whispers. When she was young, Galadriel had thought the aura surrounding Taniquetil to be only natural, natural and right. But as she grew older, the scales fell from her eyes, and she saw that it was not piety that was encouraged, but unquestioning obedience only. It wanted unquestioning obedience, and to all those that might ask questions, promised only misfortune.

Galadriel turned her gaze to Elros, who still looked upon the Meneltarma with an air of deep-seated ambivalence. She watched as a shadow fell over his face, one that had no source in the shadow of the mountain.

"In truth," she said quietly, "I had another motive in coming here. I came to return something that belonged to your house at one time."

Elros tore his gaze away from the Meneltarma, blinking his dark eyes in confusion. "And what might that be?"

Galadriel removed the ring from her right hand, and held it up so that Elros could see it, held it so that the sunlight peering over the mountain could catch on the emerald eyes of the entwined snakes, making them glint like stars. Elros stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending, but then, his eyes grew round with shock. "Is that…"

"What you know as the Ring of Barahir, yes."

Truthfully, Galadriel was loath to part with it. She had found the ring in the wreckage of the Havens of Sirion after it was sacked, those eyes glinting as bright as they did now. It was the one memento she had left of her brothers, the one thing that she could hold in her hands to remind her that they had lived, that they were more than memory and the stories that had been built up around them. But in her heart, she knew that it must be done. Finrod had given his ring to Barahir willingly, given it to him for his heirs, and if Elros was nothing else, he was the heir of Barahir.

She held her head high as she stretched her upturned hand towards Elros, the ring sitting on her palm. "This was committed to your forefather as an heirloom of your house. So shall it be again. Let it be a symbol of friendship between us. If you or your heirs come to me seeking aid, it shall be given."

Elros nodded, his eyes still round. Almost hesitantly, he reached out and took the ring from Galadriel's open palm, holding it in his own with an abstracted look on his face. "Thank you, my Lady," he murmured, eyes transfixed upon the ring.

Galadriel nodded, and said nothing. The shadow still lied upon his face.

-0-0-0-

The voyage back to Lindon found Galadriel in her cabin, nursing a splitting headache and flinching at every rocking of the ship by the waves. She still heard nothing of creation in the waters, but she thought she understood more fully now, what was to come.

Her future did indeed lie in the East, and it was there that she would truly become one of the great. But out of the West would come the children of Númenórë, bearing her brother's ring, and they would come as victims of the Great Sea and its tall waves, seeking aid. That green land would founder. Like anything of Endóre, it would not last.

* * *

 **Calacirya** —"Cleft of Light" (Quenya); a mountain pass in the Pelóri, in which was located the hill of Túna and the city of Tirion. It is mentioned that the Calacirya was "made" in the same year that the Vanyar and Noldor first reached Aman, suggesting that it was created by one or several of the Valar in order to allow the Elves into Aman without having to cross the Pelóri. After the hiding of Valinor when the Pelóri Mountains were raised higher, the Calacirya was the only gap left in the mountains, left there because the Elves still needed to breathe the air brought by the wind over the sea from Middle-Earth where they were born, and because this would have left the Falmari completely isolated from the Vanyar and the Noldor (No mention is made of what would have become of the remaining Noldor, considering that their city was located _within_ the Calacirya).  
 **Lindar** —'Singers'; the clan name the Nelyar gave themselves (rendered in Telerin as 'Lindai'; rendered in Primitive Quendian as 'lindā' or 'glindā, though the latter appears only in Sindarin), for it was said that they learned to sing before they learned to speak. The Lindar (later known to outsiders as the Teleri) split into several groups: the Falmari of Aman, the Sindar, and the Nandor (which itself encompasses the Laiquendi and the Silvan-folk).  
 **Araman** —possibly meaning 'Beside Aman' or 'Outside Aman' (Quenya); a barren land in the north of Aman, on the coast between the Pelóri mountain range and the Sundering Sea. It reaches northwards up to the Helcaraxë.  
 **Falmari** —those among the Teleri who completed the journey to Aman; the name is derived from the Quenya falma, '[crested] wave.'  
 **Vása** —a name given to the Sun by the Noldor, signifying 'The Consumer' (Exilic Quenya); of the Sun and the Moon, it is the younger of the two vessels, lit by Laurelin's last fruit  
 **Endóre** —Middle-Earth (Quenya)  
 **Númenórë** —a more conservative Quenya form of the name 'Númenor'  
 **Núnatani** —"Men of the West" (Quenya) (singular: Núnatan); the Quenya form of Dúnedain, used first to refer to the Númenoreans and then to the people of Gondor and Arnor  
 **Edain** —Men of the three houses (the Houses of Bëor, Hador and Haleth) who were faithful to the Elves throughout the First Age; after the War of Wrath they were gifted with the land of Númenor and became known as the Dúnedain; after the Akallabêth they established Arnor and Gondor (singular: Adan) (Sindarin)  
 **Edhil** —Elves (singular: Edhel) (Sindarin)


End file.
